Edmonton Oilers star forward Leon Draisaitl is a durable player, but two years in a row he suffered injuries close to the end of the regular season. In April 2025, he suffered a lower body injury and missed the last 11 games of the regular season. He did come back in time for the playoffs, had 33 points in 22 games while playing with broken ribs. The Oilers went to game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals vs the Florida Panthers.
Now, in 2026, he was hit into the half boards during the Nashville Predators game on March 15 that resulted in another lower body injury and will most likely miss 14 games of the regular season. There is no news as of today if he will return for the playoffs. We are all hopeful he will, but my guess he will not return until round 3, the Western Conference Finals (not that I am saying the Oilers will still be playing at that time but hope they are).
The Oilers have to learn how to play with one superstar player and balance the lines now. The 20-24 minutes that Leon would have played will not be available to Roslovic, Henrique, Dickinson and others. This might be a blessing as the Oilers 3rd and 4th lines do not always get big minutes and now they will. Who will step up? Who will have a “Connor Brown” like playoff year? Do the Oilers have the talent to get through two rounds without two superstars? Time will tell and they are certainly slow to convince us of that.
McDavid's controversial comments
We are all know that scouting talent is never truly learned but it’s an instinct that you follow and pray that you are right. The 2024 and 2025 Stanely Cup Finals demonstrated that depth is so important to winning that supersedes having superstars. In their past two cup winning years, The Florida Panthers were built for the Stanely Cup playoffs.
The Carolina Hurricanes of 2006 were built for the playoffs as well as the 2006 Edmonton Oilers. Stanley Cup winning terms have great defensive systems in place, players that know exactly what their roles are and all are in sync. The Colorado Avalanche, Buffalo Sabres, Minnesota Wild and Tampa Bay Lightning are such teams this year.
McDavid, in a recent game against Tampa said
“They have a great system, they’re perfectly coached,”
“They all know what they’re doing all over the ice. It’s impressive. They’re a great team.”
“They’re extremely well-coached, they’re extremely well-organized. They’re very rehearsed in everything they do. It’s very impressive. And when you do break them down, they have a heck of a goalie to backstop them.”
“We’ve been playing together a long time and we feel like we’re somewhat rehearsed and organized, but not to their level.”
What he said in a post-game interview are the essentials to a winning formula in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Many are analyzing what message he meant to portray with those comments. I think he meant to say what the Oilers are lacking and what they should aspire to be! In order to carry out those features, you have to have a GM and scouting staff that can find players to be part of the “sync” and contribute to a system of play. The Oilers have always had poor choices for draft picks I years when they did not get the first or top five pick.
In 2012 NHL draft, Edmonton had the No. 1 pick and decided to go with Nail Yakupov, who was ranked #1 for very odd reasons now that I look back at his junior history. I really do not see what the Oilers scouting staff saw in him. You will be shocked to find out who the Oilers could have had in that draft year: Andrei Vasilevskiy, Morgan Rielly, Tom Wilson, Jacob Trouba, Filip Forsberg, and Tomas Hertl. That is just a shortlist of a draft rich year of future stars. The Oilers scouting staff and then GM, Steve Tambillini, really messed up in picking Nail Yakupov when they could have had Andrei Vasilevsky!
In 2011 they picked Ryan Nugent-Hopkins first overall, 2013 they picked Darnell Nurse at seventh and 2014 was Leon at third. None of the other picks in 2012-2014 has significant NHL careers (except for Oscar Kelfbom who only played 398 games due to a significant injury) to demonstrate how poorly they drafted players prior to the arrival of McDavid. Only seven players of 96 drafted by the Oilers between 2011-2014 are still playing in the NHL!
Draft choices between 2015-2018
In 2015, we were lucky to pick McDavid at first. He is truly a generational player. In that draft year, we also picked Caleb Jones and Ethan Bear, both of whom had key spots in the line up during the early McDavid years.
Then 2016 draft year comes along and the scouts had it wrong again in picking Jesse Puljujärvi at fourth overall. We could have had Matthew Tkachuk, Tage Thompson, Charlie McAvoy, Clayton Keller, Adam Fox or Connor Ingram. That was a great draft year for most teams but not us. We actually had 9 picks in 2016 but most did not play even 200 games.
In 2017, we picked Kailer Yamamoto at 22nd as our first round pick and Stuart Skinner at 78th. In his 10 years so far in the NHL, Yamamoto has only played 315 games and only 254 games for us. We traded Skinner after about 170 games. So, not a good draft year again. In 2018, we picked Evan Bouchard at 10, Ryan McLeod at 40. McLeod has left the team and thus many draft picks between 2015-2018 did not work out.
Draft choices between 2019-2025
In 2019, we picked Philip Broberg at eight, in 2020 we picked Dylan Holloway at 14th, Connor Clattenburg at 160. Two of the three mentioned players have been sadly traded and most of the players pick after 2020 are not playing in the NHL yet. So, if you really examine the success of the Oilers in drafting players that have longevity, the percent is very low.
Teams like the Chicago Blackhawks, Montreal Canadians, Buffalo Sabres and Utah Mammoth have been drafting very well, protecting most of their young talents and allowing them to grow together into roles that will shape the team into a playoff contender (as the young Oilers did in 1979).
The Oilers have two legitimate superstars and many excellent players like RNH, Hyman, Bouchard, Ekholm and I guess Nurse. Those players have been their core but the support players keep changing (including their goaltending duo) leading to great instability in the team.
We have 13 out of 30 new faces on this year’s roster that were not there on game 6 of the 2025 Stanely Cup Playoffs. That is a lot of change over and thus instability that may explain the Oilers inability to have more than one 3 game winning streak this year. We are seeing a lot of frustration in McDavid as the 2025-2026 regular season winds down. I think he has lost faith in his head coach and is trying hard to carry and motivate this team. Time will tell how this season ends but there is no shortage of storylines!
Did the oilers get quality players at the March 6th Trade Deadline?
Draft picks shape a team into contenders 5-10 years down the line. Trade acquisitions in March shape as team into contenders now and in 1-5 years. Did the Oilers get the right players to make a playoff push this year? In March 2026, the Oilers acquired stay at home defenseman, Connor Murphy from Chicago as well as the defensive forward, Jason Dickinson and Colton Dach. They also acquired forward Josh Bloom from Vancouver Canucks.
Three of those 4 now play for the team and have significantly improved the team and given the team depth. But, there are many areas that need improvement as we all know – goaltending, penalty play specialists and 4th line depth scoring. The hope is that they will seriously address this in the off season but is what they have now in their roster enough for a playoff push. With two scoring lines with Connor and Leon, I would say yes. But with Leon injured, it will be a difficult road to travel to get back to the Western Conference Finals let alone the Stanely Cup finals.
Looking ahead to the final stretch of the Oilers' season
The Oilers have had good success during the last 10 games of the regular seasons, mainly because they are playing a lot of the games against Pacific Division teams. The Pacific Division has been the weakest division this year compared to the others so the Oilers should consider themselves fortunate to not be playing against Carolina, Buffalo, Montreal, Tampa or Columbus.
The Oilers were 9-0-1 in 2023, 4-5-1 in 2024 and 7-3-0 in 2025. So, pretty good end of season records for the most part. The Oilers have 10 games left in the 2025-2026 season with a very favourable upcoming games against Vegas (2), Anaheim, Seattle, Chicago, Sharks, Kings, Vancouver, Utah and Colorado. I think they can win at least 6 or 7 of those games and still be in the second or third spot in the Pacific.
They have had four straight over100 point seasons but that streak may be in jeopardy this year as I do not think the will get to 100 points. The important thing is getting into the playoffs vs winning the President’s trophy. Home ice advantage is a real thing and can help a team in the playoffs, so the Oilers should push to win as many points as possible to bump the Ducks from the top spot in the Pacific Division.
I am doubtful they will get there but are destined to play the Vegas or Nashville in the first round of the 2026 Stanely Cup playoffs. Playing either team will not be easy. Oilers have the advantage of having Connor and Leon on the ice and can get to the Western Conference Finals for the 3rd time. Let’s hope they can find another gear to push towards the end of the season, finish strong and flip the switch into the 2026 playoffs.